


bruised, not broken

by thatotherperv



Category: Leverage
Genre: Childhood Trauma, Developing Friendships, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Injury Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-19
Updated: 2017-06-19
Packaged: 2018-11-16 04:24:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11246256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatotherperv/pseuds/thatotherperv
Summary: The first time Parker gets hurt on a job, Eliot doesn’t want to care.





	bruised, not broken

**Author's Note:**

> I found a Leverage fic on my hard drive recently that I apparently wrote in 2009 and never posted...I like it a lot so I figured I'd share. 
> 
> pretty much gen, but this is the least canonically established side of my ot3, so it's pre-ship if you squint. it's set in early season 1, between canonical jobs

The first time Parker gets hurt on a job, Eliot doesn’t want to care.

He doesn’t even _like_ her. Six weeks with Nate’s crew and Eliot’s found a working common ground with everyone else on the team, even the geek. Truthfully, he doesn’t _like_ any of them…Hardison’s cocky, and constantly invades his space; Sophie’s a grifter first, last, always, and Eliot reckons you never _can_ trust them…and Nate. Nate’s alright. But Nate drinks.

Point is, there are reasons not to trust any of them, but he’s made his peace with those. Well enough to let his guard part-way down, be civil and do the work. They’re damn good together, and he appreciates how proficient they are at their jobs. Parker too.

But Parker gets his hackles up in a way that Eliot just can’t get past.

At first he thinks…well, it’s _Parker_. The reasons to feel uncomfortable are plain to anyone who’s had a conversation with the girl…or what passes for one, anyway. But he gets past that pretty quickly…it’s just plain survival tactics to block out her bizarre observations and appalling lack of social graces. 

There’s something else about her that gives him the heebee-jeebies. He eventually decides it’s the way she reminds him of a wild animal. Unpredictably dangerous if you don’t understand their triggers and Parker…to say he doesn’t understand Parker is a huge understatement. He could take her, obviously—110 pounds in soaking wet wool—but he’s acutely aware that Parker has a rare advantage. It’s not too crazy to imagine her breaking into his place while he’s asleep and…. Yeah, he’s not sure what she’d do then, and that’s the whole problem.

As much as the team likes to joke about the girl, Eliot’s pretty sure no one but him can see what a powder keg she really is. He needs her for the con, but he doesn’t trust her. Not to watch his back, not to do what she’s supposed to do.

So it’s kind of ironic that she gets hurt because _he_ doesn’t have _hers_. She takes a beating that shoulda been his, and doesn’t say a word. He listens to her grunt through the hits, and wishes, for once, that the comm connection was a little less clear because he’s too far away to do jack shit except cuss himself every time she takes a blow.

Far as he knows, she’s got no training, formal or otherwise, but she’s lived in the underbelly most of her life and Eliot knows she’s not above crotch-shots and eye-jabs. She’s gone by the time he gets to the scene. 

They meet up to debrief and she swears that she’s fine. The rest of them take it face-value, reassured for some reason that she slips away without notice. Hands over the goods and then poof, vanished, gone. And well, that’s Parker. But Eliot can’t stop thinking about the careful way she was holding her body, or how she didn’t meet any of them in the eye.

He goes home but his conscience can’t let go. Tracks her by GPS on his own phone, because Hardison isn’t as useless as he looks, and the girl might enjoy money, but the way she’s living don’t show it. It’s not the crappiest neighborhood in LA but it’s not the safest either, and Eliot cusses when he realizes there’s _one_ lock on the door. Not even a deadbolt. Good news is even _he_ can pick it to let himself in, but she’s too good a thief to be that stupid with her own personal safety.

He finds her on the couch, curled up fetal and protective around her own body, and the way she doesn’t wake up at his entrance spooks him. He calls her name and she stirs, moans, cringes further in on herself…that’s when he realizes she’s some sort of conscious, but in too much pain to be _aware_. And possibly, has a concussion.

He squats down by the couch and hesitates to touch her, because she’s little and she’s injured but that doesn’t make her safe to startle. He repeats her name and she cringes away like a beaten dog, finally registering his presence.

When he gets it, Eliot feels like a complete and utter moron for not seeing the signs sooner. He knows nothing about Parker’s childhood but he, of all people, should know _this_ when he sees it. He’s so stupid.

Her eyes are cloudy and disoriented and not a little bit startled. But her pupils are equal, so that’s a relief. “Eliot?”

“Just me,” he says, though he wishes it were Alec or Sophie or Nate, anyone this girl trusts and not him. “I’m thinkin you fibbed when you said you were fine.”

The deep breath she takes by instinct is aborted abruptly and yeah, broken ribs are a bitch. “I’ve had worse, you can go home now.”

“Had my share of ‘worse’ too…mind if I take a look?”

It’s probably the politest exchange he’s ever had with her, but he feels acutely inadequate. Parker never hesitates to whip off her shirt, but this time she does. When she finally sits up to take it off she moves wrong, wobbles precariously and pales so far she looks gray.

“Easy. Easy, darlin’.” He doesn’t really register the endearment’s out til she gives him a suspicious eye. He ignores it. It’s just a reflex from a lifetime of downplaying the threat he poses to noncombatants. 

She’s the color of oatmeal once her arms are out of the shirt, but he can tell already that her torso is gonna be all kinds of pretty colors. The look she gives him when a stethoscope comes out of his bag would be funny under different circumstances.

“I thought they only gave those to doctors.”

“Hush,” he tries. Her breathing sounds are clear and normal on the left side, but he started off easy and most of her hits were on the right. By the time he gets to that side, her voice is booming through the scope, smothering everything else. He rips the earbuds out and glares. “I’m a thief. How is it shocking I have something I shouldn’t?”

Truth is, he bought it fair and square, top of the line with split tubing and a triple head, but the supposition that he stole it from some physician shuts her up faster, because _that_ , she understands. The nuances of Eliot’s job are lost on the team like there aren’t any…it would amuse and annoy him in equal measure, if he let himself care. He doubts they’ve considered how it’s possible that he’s fit, healthy and still in the game at the ripe old age of thirty-five.

Being a competent field medic is a big part of it. Course, til now, his only patient has been himself, and that’s how he liked it. This is the problem with working on a team.

Once she settles down with the stupid questions, he decides pretty quick that her ribs aren’t broken. Her right lung is as clear as the left, but more importantly, there’s no telltale creak of bone-on-bone when he asks her to shift a bit. 

He sits back on his heels and puts the scope aside. She looks a sicklier grey again from doing what he’d asked, and he’s a little impressed that she never even whimpered. It makes his voice come out softer than he wants. “Just bruised, not broken.”

“I could have told you that,” she smarts back, but her eyes are all glazed and it just comes out pitiful. Like he hurt her for nothing.

The guilt sucks, so instead of feeling it, he presses on each rib individually, gauging how many and where. It makes her blanch further, which makes him feel guiltier, and guilt’s a stupid emotion so he’s glad when he can replace it with anger.

There’s a divot, a permanent indentation on her tenth rib, left side. He shouldn’t have noticed it, focused on the right, except his other hand, for some reason, had settled there without him noticing, thumb stroking to soothe away the pain he was causing her elsewhere. His hands apparently don’t ignore guilt as well as his brain. So he _does_ notice it, at first with alarm that he missed an injury that severe.

Except it’s healed. The bone doesn’t give, or creak…when he presses, she doesn’t flinch. But her body shies away like it’s old instinct to cover that weakness. He doubts she’d let him probe it like this if she weren’t concussed. The dent is too wide, like the bone broke in two places and the fragment displaced before it mended. Like it never got treated _at all_ , by a doctor or layperson. It’s perfectly placed to endanger her lungs, diaphragm _and_ her liver, and he can only imagine it hurt like hell, ’specially unwrapped.

He wonders how it happened. It’s the perfect size for a man’s boot, when you factor Parker’s growth. He doesn’t have to reach far in his imagination to conjure a grown man kicking a child on the ground, to make the kid small and blond and delicate.

He’s stunned by his own fury til Parker wriggles. “That hurts,” she chokes and he realizes he’s digging his thumb into a sore point on the right. He swears and sits back.

“Okay,” he says, unsure what he means. He shakes himself out of it. It’s an old injury, and none of his business. “Uh, do you have any ice? No point in wrapping them with nothing broken, but we can reduce the fallout.”

“Why would I have ice?” she asks, not because she’s fuzzy with pain. No, she’s clear-headed enough that he can tell it’s just her, clueless as to why a body would keep ice in their refrigerator. He bites back the words on the tip of his tongue and retreats to the kitchen.

The contents of her fridge make Eliot want to cry. It looks like a five-year-old got ahold of enough cash for takeout and junk food, then left half of it to rot past good sense. The best he can find for an ice pack is an open, half-gone package of Swanson chicken nuggets.

No wonder she’s built like a twig.

Her eyes tear up when he ices her ribs, but she refuses his painkillers. Or really, just ignores him each time that he asks, and he’ll be damned if he’ll pill her like a cat. She’s answering his other questions, submitting to his head exam, so he knows she’s still with him. Just stubborn about drugs for some reason.

When it’s all said and done, she wasn’t really lying to the crew…no major damage was done, nothing that merits a hospital trip or even some stitches. She woulda healed up on her own, but it’s not like Eliot knew that. Could have been easily worse. A little more pressure, a few more hits before she jammed her thumb in the asshole’s eye, and it woulda been worse. But it coulda been better, too. If he’d done his damn job, she’d be fine and he’d have nothing more than the after-fight soreness he lives with day to day.

Eventually he returns the nuggets to the freezer, merely cold and kinda mushy…by the time they firm up again, she’ll need another round. He could probably go. There’s nothing much he can do here anyway, and now that he’s not busy looking at her, he has time to look at the apartment they’re in and he wishes he hadn’t. It’s a shithole. He’s lived in worse, on assignment, or when he first left home. But never by choice, once there was money in the bank. He doesn’t flash his wealth around, but no one on the receiving end of a multi-million dollar payout chooses to live in a place like this.

Nobody but Parker, apparently. 

It’s not right to leave her defenseless in a place like this. No telling what could happen.

Eliot rolls his eyes at himself when he catches what he’s doing. _You wanna stay, Spencer, stay. Don’t gotta talk yourself into it._

Course, he shouldn’t really _want_ to stay, should he?

There’s a pitiful whimper as Parker shifts on the couch, involuntary animal pain, not for show. When he crosses to the couch, she flinches like the first time, stares at him muzzily and says, “Eliot?” and he thinks, _you idiot, forgot the concussion_.

Staying, it is.

“Yeah, it’s me. Again. Still.”

She makes a sound that could mean anything, and shifts to sit back up…now that she’s aware of his presence again, there’s no sound at the pain, just a ragged catching of breath. It frays his last nerve. 

“Christ, Parker, take the Vicodin, ok? Just take the fucking pills.”

“Hate that. Knocks me out.” She looks at him like an exhausted but obstinate child, and he bites his cheek to reign himself in. 

“Sweetheart, that’s half the goddamn point.”

Her eyes are drooping like she’s on last reserves. “’s not safe, be like that. I’m fine.”

It’s an effort to avoid pointing out that she’s not on guard _sober_ , or that she’d be dandy in a place with security. An infuriating lack of logic, of common sense, is part of the Parker experience.

Plus, she’s survived this life, same as him. Her rules have obviously served her, somehow. 

“I’ll keep watch. You take the pills and rest a while.”

That is apparently worth the effort of dragging her eyes back open, face screwed up in confusion. “You’re leaving,” she states.

“I’m staying.”

“You’re staying?”

“That’s what I just said.” Doesn’t sound annoyed like it should. She expects him to leave. To just up and…leave her this way. Same as her mama—or whoever—left her be with that rib.

“If you’re here, then I’m safe.” He’s embarrassed that she says that, though it’s really just his job description, and the logic he was trying to press on her. It sounds different coming out of her mouth. Private, like the concussion broke the filter to her mouth and she’s just thinking things through. Which is why it shames him, how certain she sounds. He failed her today, and she doesn’t seem to realize it.

Christ, he’s maudlin. It’s bullshit, this teamwork crap. This is what it leads to. There’s no flagellation when you can only fail yourself.

“Aaalhhhh.”

Parker’s mouth is open, tongue offered out like she’s still a little kid. 

“What the hell are you doing?”

“I said ok. I’ll take the pill.” She baby-birds her mouth again like she expects him to drop it right onto her tongue, and it cracks him up more than it should. 

The crazy’s contagious, is what it is. It’s the only reason he indulges her, calling her ‘good girl’ when she catches it like a Snausage.

She won’t remember this anyway, so it doesn’t count. None of this changes a damn thing.

**Author's Note:**

> original A/N: I had this bunny during s1, before my own personal theories about Eliot’s childhood were made canon. The funny thing is, I probably never would have written it but then they *were* confirmed, and somehow rather than getting less interesting to me, they got *more* interesting. I blame Chris for making the emotional scars of childhood abuse look sexy.


End file.
